Ultra (7 page)

We did our best to keep up with her. “Kara’s a cop,” I explained to Kneecap.

“Really?” Kneecap said. “And here we are, breaking the speed limit!”

The path veered right and we crossed a huge basin filled with loose scree. Kara led the way, hopping from boulder to boulder.

“How much farther to the top?” Kneecap asked.

“Probably about a mile,” said Kara.

The trail edged back to the cliff, and the three of us found ourselves walking in single file along a narrow ledge. A curl of blue smoke rose out of the valley far below. Kara scrabbled along the path like a mountain goat.

“The wind’s strong up here,” I said.

“Cold too,” said Kneecap.

“Enjoy it while you can,” said Kara. “It’ll be hotter than an oven on the other side.”

I looked back at Kneecap. Her face was greenish grey, the colour of pressure-treated wood.

“You okay?” I called out.

She was staring at the water far below. “This is the craziest sport in the world,” she said.

We walked a little farther and the trail broadened out. Relieved, I moved back from the ledge. Kara stood at the top of the ridge, waiting for us to catch up. Kneecap bent over and rubbed the backs of her legs. “What do they give you when you cross the finish line?” she asked. “A car?”

“A belt buckle,” Kara said.

Kneecap’s smile folded. “A
what
?” she said.

“Belt buckle.”

Kneecap shot me a you-gotta-be-joking look.

“And get this,” Kara added. “You only get the belt buckle if you finish in twenty-four hours. Take longer than that and you don’t get anything at all.”

Kneecap shook her head in disbelief. “Nuts, nuts, totally nuts,” she said.

“Kara won this race last year,” I said.

“No
way
.”

“Way.”

Kneecap smiled weakly at Kara. “And all you got for it was a belt buckle?” she said.

“It’s not about the prize,” said Kara.

“What’s it about?”

“Enduring.”

A gust of wind threw us against the rock face. We crouched
down. Kneecap was still massaging her legs.

“You okay, hon?” Kara asked.

“I think I’ve got shin splints.”

“Those aren’t your shins.”

“Really? What are they?”

“Your calves.”

Kneecap smirked. “Yeah? So I’ve got calf splints then.”

The sunlight flickered, and I glanced up. A glider plane, white as a ghost, circled silently above our heads. Chimney Top’s blunted summit loomed not far away. We still had to get to the top of that crest.

“Come on,” said Kara. “Final push.”

Ten minutes later we reached the summit. The wind was fierce, so we walked in single file across the plateau. Kara went first, then me, then Kneecap. At last we came to the massive blade of rock that everyone calls the Shark’s Fin. We sat down behind it, sheltered from the wind. Kara shrugged off her hydration pack and leaned back against the rock.

“Anyone want raisins?” she asked.

Kneecap took a handful. Her face was blotchy and her shirt was soaked with sweat.

“Having fun?” Kara asked her.

“No,” said Kneecap. “It feels like my brain has turned to oatmeal.”

“Want some yams?” I asked, pulling out my bag.

“Have they got salt on them? Yessss!”

Kneecap popped a chunk of sweet potato into her mouth and closed her eyes.

“That’ll give you strength,” Kara said.

“It tastes like I’m eating the sun,” said Kneecap.

I stared down at the valley. It was misty green, and hay-coloured sunshine fell in stripes over the hills. I unclasped my hydration pack and pulled out the bladder to see how much water I had left. I’d drunk a lot on the trip up the mountain, but the bladder was still three-quarters full. I stuffed it back into the hydration pack.

“How did you get your nickname?” Kara asked Kneecap.

“My older brother gave it to me,” Kneecap said, swinging her legs back and forth.

“She used to knee him,” I said. “Where it counts.”

Kara winced. “There are laws against that,” she said.

“I was just a kid,” said Kneecap.

For a few moments, nobody said anything. Kara and Kneecap chewed their raisins.

“Speaking of nicknames,” Kneecap said, turning to me, “I figured out your superhero name.”

“What is it?” I said.

She smiled at me. “The Lactator.”

“The what?” I said.

“Isn’t that one of your superpowers?” she asked. “Your body makes a ton of lactic acid, right?”

“No,” I said. “It doesn’t make much.”

“Oh,” said Kneecap. “Then it’s not such a good name.”

Kara repacked her bag of raisins. “I haven’t got a clue what you kids are talking about,” she said.

“Wait a second,” said Kneecap. “What about Ultra Boy? You’re a boy, and you run ultra-marathons.”

“This is the first one I’ve run,” I said. “And I haven’t even finished it yet.”

“Details, details,” said Kneecap. “I think Ultra Boy rocks.”

I looked down the mountain. A line of colourful dots was bobbing up the trail we’d just climbed. Other runners.

“Break time’s over,” said Kara. “Ready to push on?”

“No thanks,” said Kneecap. “My work here is done. You two will have to carry on without me.”

I almost felt an ache, hearing those words. “You could come with us to the next rest stop,” I said.

“How far is that?” asked Kneecap.

“Seventeen miles.”

Kneecap laughed. “I’ve had enough exercise for one day,” she said. “Actually, I’ve had enough for the whole year!”

Kara slung her hydration pack over her shoulders. “Nice meeting you, Kneecap,” she said.

“Ditto,” said Kneecap.

The two of them high-fived. Kneecap gave me a military salute. I saluted back, and then she turned and walked away.

“Be careful on the ledges,” I shouted.

“Yeah, yeah,” she replied.

When she rounded the edge of Shark’s Fin, the wind blew her hair straight back and her face turned golden brown in the sunshine. Then she dropped out of sight and was gone.

“Cool kid,” said Kara. “Not much of a runner though.”

“Come on,” I said. “We’re losing time.”

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
How long have you and Kneecap been friends?

QUINN:
Ever since she moved to our neighbourhood. We’re in the same year at school and we used to sit together on the bus.

And of course, we started the UHL together.

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
The UHL?

QUINN:
Last year at school, Kneecap made this amazing discovery. She kicked a quarter across the floor of the boys’ washroom, and it ricocheted off the rounded lip where the floor meets the wall and flew into the air. Somehow she got the angle just right and the quarter landed right in the urinal! It was a perfect goal. And that’s how urinal hockey was born.

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
So UHL stands for …

QUINN:
The Urinal Hockey League. We had eight teams — The Whiz Kids, The Main Vein Drainers, The Double Flushers … We even had an anthem for the league.

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
Someone wrote a song about urinal hockey?

QUINN:
I did! We used to sing it before all the games. It goes to the
tune of “God Save the Queen.”

God save our humble can,

Smelly and pee-stained can,

God save our can!

Lead us victorious,

Yellow and glorious,

Please don’t flatulate over us,

God save our can!

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
That’s very … creative!

QUINN:
We had twenty games in the regular season, then the playoffs after that. We played two on two, with 5-minute periods. Whenever someone scored, the losing goalie would have to pick the quarter out of the urinal with his fingers.

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
Sounds … um … disgusting.

QUINN:
Everyone washed their hands right after. I also invented the “fresh flush” rule.

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
And Kneecap was involved in this? Even though the games were played in the boys’ washroom?

QUINN:
Kneecap never had any problem with that. None of the boys minded either, since she was one of our best players.

The trouble began when Kneecap started bringing other girls into the league. I’m all for equality, but it wasn’t smart, sneaking ten girls into the boys’ washroom every lunch hour.

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
The teachers caught on, I gather?

QUINN:
Yeah. Kneecap got suspended for a week. I thought I was going to get nailed too, but I didn’t.

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
Why not? Did Kneecap protect you?

QUINN:
She must have. She’s pretty loyal.

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
I’ve got a crazy question for you, Quinn Scheurmann.

QUINN:
What?

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
Remember how Kneecap called you a fun vampire? I’m curious … When’s the last time you had some fun?

QUINN:
I don’t know. Maybe at last year’s Hallowe’en dance? Actually, no. That wasn’t fun at all.

I didn’t see Kneecap until the end of the night. I don’t like dancing very much, especially when I’m wearing a lame Hallowe’en costume, so I spent most of the evening in the cafeteria, playing cards.

At eight-thirty I wandered down to the gym. Kneecap ran over from her group of friends and grabbed my hand.

“Where have you been hiding?” she asked.

“Nowhere,” I said.

Her body was encased in a bunch of cardboard cubes. She’d painted them red, green, blue and yellow. Her head poked out of a yellow cube on top.

“What
are
you?” I asked.

“A game of Tetris, dummy!” she said.

She looked like a giant letter L, perched on two skinny legs wrapped in black leggings. She was wearing red Converse
sneakers with Tetris-themed shoelaces. It looked like she’d painted the Tetris shapes herself.

“What are you?” she asked me. “A doctor?”

“A
killer
doctor,” I said, showing off the fake blood on my hands.

Kneecap nodded, unimpressed. “Didn’t you wear those scrubs last year?”

“That was two years ago,” I said. “I was a marathon runner last year.”

“Of course. How could I forget?” Kneecap put her hands on her hips, which were a metre wide with all those cubes. She was wearing a little bit of makeup, I noticed, which she didn’t usually do.

“Come on,” she said, pulling me toward the dance floor. Her hand felt soft, like the grips on my handlebars. Her friends were watching us from the corner of the gym.

“You can actually dance in that costume?” I said.

“Of course! I’ve been dancing all night.”

To prove this, she did a little twirl and accidentally hit a grade-seven boy dressed as Thor.

“Sorry, Thor!” Kneecap said.

“He’s the Hammer God, he can take it,” I said.

Kneecap kept dancing. “Come on, Q-Tip! Show me what you’ve got!”

“I’m not a very good dancer,” I said.

“Who cares?” she said. “This isn’t
Dancing With the Stars
.”

“But I don’t really like this song,” I muttered.

“You don’t like any normal songs,” Kneecap said.

“Sure I do,” I said. “I like Bovine Ancestry. And Troutspawn.”

“Oh, come on,” said Kneecap. “A vacuum cleaner makes better music than those guys. And it’s impossible to dance to that stuff.”

Just then, the song “Don’t Stop Believin’” came on.

“Perfect!” Kneecap squealed. “You
have
to dance to this one!”

Everyone was swarming onto the dance floor.

“But it’s lame,” I said. “You know that it’s lame.”

“You’re lame,” Kneecap said. “Come on, it’s late, and we
need
to dance.”

She dragged me to the centre of the gym while strobe lights flashed atop the stacks of speakers. She surprised me by putting her arms around my neck, even though everyone else was doing their best air guitar. I put my hands on either side of Kneecap’s cubes, and we staggered back and forth in a weird boxy shuffle. Kneecap smelled nice, like green-apple jelly beans. I was nervous, and left sweaty handprints all over her cardboard.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “But it’s a little bit awkward.”

She detached the cubes around her shoulders and arms. She also took the yellow box away from her head. “That better?” she said.

It wasn’t really, since she still had cubes around her waist. Kneecap smushed her cheek against my neck. “This is nice,” she said. “I’ve wanted to do this for a while.”

Off to our right, thirty kids swayed back and forth in a big circle. Zombies, soldiers, sexy cats. A group of grade-seven boys grinned at me from the stage. My friend Spencer was up there, laughing.

“Hey, Quinn!” he shouted. “Your girlfriend’s a square!”

I glared at him. What’s your deal? I thought.

“Something wrong?” Kneecap whispered in my ear.

“No,” I said.

But something was. I had a gross feeling in my stomach, as if I’d drunk too much pop. But I also felt happy to be dancing with Kneecap.

“Careful!” Spencer shouted. “She’s got a wide load!”

I shot Spencer my death stare. You snot rocket, I mouthed.

Kneecap didn’t seem to notice any of this, but I felt really embarrassed for some reason. So I did something really dumb. I took Kneecap’s hand from the back of my neck and stuck it straight out, like the spout of a watering can. Then I swayed Kneecap back and forth, with our hands stuck straight out, like we were a waltzing teapot or something.

“What are you doing?” Kneecap said, laughing.

“I’m not sure,” I said, tipping her forward. I wanted to get as far away from Spencer as possible.

And then I did something even stupider. The stupidest thing I possibly could have done.

I told a joke. Not just any joke. A
racist
joke.

I’m not sure why I did this, exactly. I only wanted to lighten the mood.